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Miranda.
Lucy was moving her shoulders awkwardly. “I was lucky.
I had help. Zach, and my parents.”
“I know,” said Fenella. “But all the same, you were glorious, Lucy. Glorious.”
They were quiet for a moment. “Well,” Lucy said at last.
“Obviously I’m not going to my class this morning. Let’s go
inside. You have to meet everyone.” She held out her hand
for a second, before letting her arm fall back to her side
when Fenella did not take it.
Fenella discovered that even with Lucy beside her, she
needed to stand on the sidewalk in front of the house for
another minute, just breathing.
She had figured out that the pink toy on the front porch
must belong to the child.
Lucy was patient. Miraculously, so was the cat. At last
Fenella reached for the cat carrier.
“Wait,” Lucy said. “Can we leave your cat outside? On the
porch? The thing is, we have a dog. We’ll have to go slow.”
No, said Ryland instantly. You need me with you.
“Yes, fine,” said Fenella to Lucy. “Let’s leave him outside.”
44

Chapter 5
Fenella had never realized before that five people (plus a dog) could constitute an enormous crowd. The fam
    ily crammed around her in the kitchen. They stared and
talked and marveled and fussed. Several of them mentioned
places they were supposed to be: jobs, school. But then they
pulled out little communication devices and gave notice
that they would be late, or were not going today. After that
they looked at Fenella as if they thought their staying with
her would make her happy.
    They
were happy. A little alarmed, a little anxious, but
genuinely glad to see Fenella. The Scarborough-MarkowitzGreenfield family was accustomed to fantastical events.
They could take it in stride when a woman showed up,
claiming to be their relative released from captivity in Faerie after hundreds of years.
    “Like Rip Van Winkle,” said Leo, Lucy’s foster father.
“Only you didn’t get older.”
Fenella didn’t know who Rip Van Winkle was. She smiled
tentatively anyway. She took a seat at their kitchen table,
well away from where the child sat in her high chair. She
did not look at the child, or at the child’s dimpled hands, or
at the child’s softly curling dark hair, or at the child’s gently
rounded arms, or at the tiny bubble of clear spit at the corner of the child’s pink lips. She closed her ears to the happy
babbling that came from the child’s mouth.
The kitchen was full of unfamiliar things and she was
able to pay attention to them. One was a fascinating box
that heated food. The box whined and gave out a demanding beep as it finished.
Lucy’s foster mother, Soledad, put something called tea
in a mug and placed it before Fenella. Her husband, Leo,
gave Fenella a bowl of strawberries and blueberries.
The berries looked delicious, but Fenella couldn’t control a
shocked face after she bit into one. Leo said, “Are those strawberries terrible? Yeah, look at that. Completely white inside.
What else can I get you? Toast? We have granola somewhere.”
Fenella didn’t know what granola was. She managed
another smile as she shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
The liquid in her mug was hot, which Fenella appreciated. Under Soledad’s supervision, Fenella put in five lumps
of sugar. “It helps with shock,” the woman said, putting several lumps in her own.
Under cover of drinking the tea, Fenella stole another
glance at Lucy’s daughter. The child was much occupied
with catching little circular food items with a fingertip and
putting them in her mouth. She raised her head to peer
shyly over at Fenella. Fenella looked away then, quickly.
Not quickly enough. Lucy’s husband, Zach, asked,
“Fenella, would you like to hold Dawn after she finishes her
Cheerios? If she’s in the mood to be held, that is. These days,
she’s into everything.”
Fenella shook her head. She muttered a question about
Dawn’s age, even though she already knew. Eighteen
months,